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Kohato brings word of a new Electronic Arts marketing strategy that aims to start monetizing game demos. According to industry analyst Michael Patcher after an EA investor visit, the publisher will start selling "premium downloadable content" prior to a game's release for $10-$15 that is essentially a longer-than-usual demo. Patcher said, "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point." He also made reference to a comment from EA's CEO John Riccitiello that "the line between packaged product sales and digital revenues would soon begin to blur."

The content for higher level characters doesn't feel complete to me, it feels like they could have done more. Not that I'm complaining, I think the price was about right for what I got from the game. It just feels like they depend too much on randomised content, especially when you compare it to the old Diablo games.

Bah! I've got a marketing model that can blow both of these out of the water. I'm creating the most awesomest game in the whole wide world. It's name you ask?
Well, that'll cost you $1.50. Would you like to hear more about it? That'll cost you $7.25. Wanna see the trailer?

Well, think of it this way - if each company makes $1 million dollars, splitting it 26 ways is much better than splitting it 7000 ways. So for each dollar Runic makes, EA would have to make approximately $270 to keep up.

I don't think it's a fantastic idea at all. The whole point of a demo is to give people a taste of the game so they buy it. But you always risk giving them so much they have time to get tired of it. When it's free you can just give them enough to get hooked, but people paying fifteen bucks for a demo are going to expect something a bit more substantial. I think this is going to cost them sales if it does anything.

Pachter wrote, "The PDLC would be sold for $10 or $15 through Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, and would essentially be a very long game demo, along the lines of 2009’s Battlefield 1943."

He added, "A full-blown packaged game would follow shortly after the release of the PDLC, bearing a full retail price. Mr. Earl believes that the release of the PDLC first limits the risk of completing and marketing the full packaged version, and serves as a low-cost marketing tool."

No, they're going to make a long demo, charge you for it, then charge you full price when the actual game comes out. Doesn't read like there's any discounts OR product-improvements planned as part of this program.

.... where they're redefining what a demo means. In my world - and everyone's world that I can think of - a demo is a short version of a full game that gives you an idea of controls, atmosphere, design and game type (with notable exception Brutal Legend, that completely failed to indicate its RTS nature). 4 hours of a game - let's say, RE5 - is about 1, maybe 2 levels in a full game. So I get to pay $10 for a game that completely fails to show me the full range of capabilities of a character, a satisfying story arc, and which might not even be finished??

Fuck you, EA. I'm not going to be suckered into paying for what sounds suspiciously like a beta program.

Then I question their strategy. $15 for me is a quality game where art and size are reduced when compared to a full game. I don't expect an indie studio to come out with Mass Effect style art, content and videos. But I do expect a full game like Castle Crashers - comprehensive story for RPGs or action game; a full set of maps, tracks and character abilities for racing, fighting or shooting games. If their PDLC wants to compete with indie games, it needs to offer that. But if it wants to also sell the full g

It's marketing noise. In my opinion some genius at marketing has come up with the idea that since they can get people to pre-pay for games, maybe they can get them to pay for a partial and then pay again for the full release..
garbage... the only way this could possibly work is if the cost of the download was later subtracted from the full retail price.
I didn't buy Bioware's expansion because it was overpriced, and I'm sure as hell not going to buy any demo.

What would be smarter is to give the demo to all people that
pre-purchase the game. Add a couple bucks for early access. You could book most of your revenue before the game hits the stores plus it gets user input and you can fire a portion of the testing team. What they are doing will never fly at 10-15 dollars for most people, but the fanboys. Plus, most of the comments they will get won't represent the whole community.

But that's the big problem isn't it. Why does it cost $50 million to create a game. It costs $50 million for a movie because some actors demand $20 million just to be in the movie. It's not like games programmers are asking for such large salaries. I've had more fun playing independant games on Wii Ware then I have playing some of the full on commercial games. Also, I think they take away a lot of the risk if they just made more $1 million games, and sold them for $10 a piece then to make a $50 million

If it's as simple as that, then it seems ok. I fear, however, that it will be more like they'll charge you $15 for the demo, then $60 for the full game, then an additional $40 for all the DLC-- and if you were to add all of it together, you'd get the same amount of content that would have been in a $50 game 10 years ago.

Maybe it's just paranoia, but I feel like the days of businesses being innovative to find a way to provide more to their customers is over. Now all the innovation is aimed at getting customers to pay more for less.

It might work if they charged the so-called beta testers an upgrade fee to the end product, so the total outlay of cash is the same or very near the same as if they had just waited and bought the game on release day. The most I would pay extra would be between $0-$5, for the privilege of playing early, but the "demo" had better be awesome. Paying anything more would be rather evil... I'm not paying full price for the finished product AFTER ALREADY HAVING PAID THEM for what amounts to beta testing.. no thank

Paying anything more would be rather evil... I'm not paying full price for the finished product AFTER ALREADY HAVING PAID THEM

I bought Fallout for my PS3. There have been a bit of updates since release, in addition to 5 DLC products. I paid $60 at launch, and now they release the GoY edition, also $60, which includes the DLC. However, for me to buy the DLC costs $50. It doesn't really make sense. Hell, it's cheaper to sell my original game and then buy the GoY edition. Buying the DLC online also has the disadvantage that I can't resell it later.

If they're pulling that stuff already, then I don't doubt that they'll try to ma

Heh. Yeah. Although I predict that I won't be buying any EA games at all any more. Not out of some kind of principled stand, mind, but simply out of not ever being exposed to them due to the paywall on the advertising.

According to the Bank of Canada, something that cost $50 in 2000 would now cost $61.42 and something that cost $50 in 1990 would now cost $74.87.

On the other hand, here's food for thought: not everything goes up in price over time. For instance, the price of an entry-level PC. Consumer electronics in general drop in price over time while increased capability rolls out. In theory, software could be one of those categories given the way 20 years ago we didn't have re-usable game engines. In theory, we sho

There was a time when you could walk into a store and buy a shareware version of a product. It was reasonably cheap between $5 and $10 and gave you a good amount of game play. This was very popular with iD software and Apogee and throughout the early 90s and before cheap internet access.

Where I was at MOST of the BBS's were long distance, not to mention that downloads were slow as molasses on a 2400 BAUD modem and the terminal program wasn't multitasking (so you had to leave the computer alone to do it's thing while it downloaded).

Trust me, those shareware houses that sold "by the disk" had a purpose back in the day.

No, shareware was free (as in beer) either limited demo or sometimes full-featured software with an evaluation or limited-time-use term (sometimes with some enforcement mechanism, sometimes not), which could be upgraded to full-and-unrestricted use by paying a fee.

So, pretty much like conventional free-demo software. Not much at all like "pay-for-a-demo, then pay-more-for-the-full-product" software that is proposed here.

While its true that you could buy shareware --the payment was notionally for the media and duplication, not a license to use -- it could also be freely redistributed, and generally was, so that while some people might buy it in stores, most people didn't (that was, in fact, key to getting it into lots of hands of people who might choose to pay for a full license.)

That's pretty much the opposite of paying for a "expanded demo" download, where

"Worse" ? I prefer the shareware model, actually, to typical retail-ware.:) Being able to try out a game - not just a demo but part of the real game - is great. Most demos are like that, but shareware - in my experience - tends to have longer "demos."

The point of a demo is to convince people to purchase your game. If you force people to also purchase the demo, then they'll likely not bother purchasing anything.

The only effect this can have is a decrease in revenue for EA followed by some long-winded rants about "piracy is decreasing our revenue" when in actuality it's EA releasing poor-quality games and making boneheaded decisions like this one that are causing them to lose revenue.

But this isn't a Demo. They are already milking the back end by selling DLC "addons" to the base product that were probably developed in tandem with the base product. Now they want to sell PDLC "addons" to the product by releasing bits of it early. I'd bet the programmers/developers won't use much if any feedback from the PDLC people as they will be too busy trying to get the base product out the door as well as the DLC content that is to be sold immediately after the base product.

So, in some respects, it is ingenious. Prior to the DLC stuff, you had:

"Base product" if that sold well then a lot of time later "expansion to base product"

The point of a demo is to convince people to purchase your game. If you force people to also purchase the demo, then they'll likely not bother purchasing anything.

While I get your point, that doesn't always have to be true. One of the biggest things that holds me back from purchasing games is uncertainty of whether or not I'll like them. And the 20-30 min demos most games get often aren't enough to assuage those fears. For example, if I've got a 50/50 chance of liking/not liking a $60 game, and I can get enough gameplay for $10 to essentially assure me of whether or not I'll like the full game, that's a net gain to me.

I'm no hardcore gamer but to me the value of a demo has always been to decide whether or not I want to spend money. Am I showing my age or something? Because what is called monetising in the summary I call money grubbing. If EA are counting on this I think they'll likely implode. If they're not, well done on one of the best jokes I've heard in a long time. Bonus points if you can convince your developers that coding is a game, and get them to pay you for working 18 hour days 7 days a week.

Wait until the next Mass Effect or Dragon Age comes along. Release the 'demo' 2 weeks before the full game... Make sure the buyers of the demo can transfer their character to the full game and you just pleased a whole lot of people who really really really want to be the first to play the game.
But: I don't get it either and yet I buy every darn car-pack for Forca 3 that comes out.

You guys were doing so good...really making a turn around. You were starting to release big games without DRM (Dragon Age), You were showing that aquiring a company no longer meant dictating every facet of development (again, Dragon Age is a good example), you were gaining some great IP (Dead Space)...and then you go and do this shit.

I was trying, EA. I really was. But this is making it very hard for me. If you take the money paid for these extended demos off the price of the full game, then ok...I'm behind you 100%. BUT. If it's just "pay for demo, pay full price for the full game"? I'm sorry EA...but I would be forced to abandon you.

EA owns Bioware. A company can't dictate ANY terms to it's parent company. Convince them that it's a good idea to stay out of their affairs? Sure. But if EA chooses otherwise, Bioware has no choice either way.

good luck with that EA. Unless you are going to provide the kind of continuous content and value of an MMO (and charging for demo's does not), I am a good many others will not buy. Oh and if it has draconian DRM and you treat Customers like Criminals people are going to make decisions based on that too and not buy.

Um no.... GT-5 was not successful here is why. When I bought my ps3 years ago it was for one purpose. GT-5.
I played the demo's of gt-5 and prologue and now they will not have any of my money.
Their system works in reverse.
Now when they come out with the next gen game this fanboy who would have bought it just on the name alone will not.

After the joke of a PSP game, im quite happy with just keeping my GT5 prologue and saying screw the final release. Prologue works well enough with my steering wheel and i dont buy GT games to rally race or F1 and i certainly dont need 700 cars. The insane delays dont help either. The fact that i already have a steering wheel from the PS3 system is the only thing stopping me switching to Forza and the MS wheel.

first it was some small cosmetic DLC (anybody remembers the huge hoopla about the 'horse armor' in Oblivion?) and lately it's starting to become a 'pay if you want the full experience' with 0-day DLC, with assets sometimes already present on the game media.

It's pretty obvious that the games industry is envying the MMO business model where customers pay as long as they play (and wish they had done so a lot earlier) and this 'paid beta access' program seems just like another step in that direction.

Nowadays not being internet connected on your gaming PC is pretty much unheard of (and with more and more games with net-based DRM impossible), the only people who would regularly play disconnected would probably be laptop users, but I guess they are not big enough of a market to stop this kind of monetization.

Consider Battlefield: Bad Company 2. A beta was available on Steam more than a month before game release, but you could only access it by pre-purchasing the game. There is a small step from that to splitting the cost between beta content, and full game content.

Not to mention when the retail version of the game BFBC2 came out it felt like I paid for an alpha version since none of the issues brought up during the beta were fixed. It took DICE nearly an entire month later to get the game up to feeling beta quality. So, I pretty much feel like I paid $64 (PC, gamestop $50 + $14 shipping and 'handling') to beta test a game and eventually get a fully working copy of it after a month long of weekly patches to get it up to this point. The patch released last week finally

Not to mention when the retail version of the game BFBC2 came out it felt like I paid for an alpha version since none of the issues brought up during the beta were fixed.

Well, they did fix some balance issues, for sure (explosive damage to objectives in Rush, bullet damage for ARs and LMGs). But as for bugs, I've found that the release version was actually more buggy than the beta, with a slew of brand new bugs in functionality that worked just fine in the beta; and the only beta bug that I actually saw fixed was that server browser sort & filtering actually worked.

You may put lipstick on a pig, teach her how to dance. But the bottom line she's still a pig. EA's bungling things in a bad way by nickle and diming the masses for software that is not stable, not final. They are going to lose out on that badly.

I have been a gamer since I was a teenager in the late 80's, and I'm very much used to downloading demo's for free, for the rare times I actually DID download game demo's but instead read tons of reviews and what have you until I got a game. I would not pay money for demo software, because then if it is a crappy game or something I did not like, I would be complaining I wasted a good $15 bucks on a crappy demo, when I could have went and bought lunch somewhere instead!:D

Patcher said, "I think that the plan is to release PDLC at $15 that has 3-4 hours of gameplay, so [it has] a very high perceived value, then [EA will] take the feedback from the community (press and players) to tweak the follow-on full game that will be released at a normal packaged price point."

So essentially, I pay $15 for the "privilege" of being a beta tester? I get to play (part of) a prerelease version of the game, so I can tell them what needs to be fixed before it ships?

That last bit is especially rich, coming from a bloke named "Patcher."

Hey, if it means that I get more interesting games because they're more profitable to make, cool. I'd pay good money for, say, a sneak preview of the next Elder Scrolls V game (or even an official version of Morroblivion complete with quests). Just please don't make it an online game; that would ruin it.

Not that I don't think a vast majority of the people at EA don't enjoy a good paint chip now and then, I haven't been under a rock you know. I just don't think this particular article is about the consequences of such.

This is a stupid idea, but not the way you think. It's stupid for us, but not for EA.

This will work for EA for the same reason why they can sell DLC which is probably developed at the same time as the game, or considered "cut" content released in the DLC. It will work because impulse gamers DON'T CARE, and will willingly pay money for this shit. We are going down the nickel and dime road of gaming because of apathy and ignorance from the vast majority of consumers who don't know any better and can't be bothered to educate themselves.

Shit, I still see people who think the DRM in Assassin's Creed 2 or CNC 4 is fine because their internet connection is "rock solid". Yeah, great. Unfortunately it doesn't mean you will still be able to play the game, particularly if EA themselves [on.net] can't keep their shit working.

Honestly it's getting to the point where I'm going to take one of there options:(1) Stick with old, quality games until I get burnt out on them(2) Stick with open-source games which don't do this DRM shit, and only purchase commercial games from independent developers who won't risk this kind of behavior(3) Find a new hobby. Probably the most healthy option anyway.

Interestingly, I was one of those people who thought my internet connection was rock solid, but as I've been trying to review (shameless plug: game-over.net) CNC4 for a couple of weeks now without being able to complete a SINGLE GAME, I guess that's not the case. I've never had problems with any online games in the past - CoD:MW, CNC3, Kane's Wrath, SC2:Beta - CNC4 regularly reports that I've been dropped from the service and need to log in again (and it doesn't save your PW, BTW). I'm sure glad my game c

The reason is, that with EA games, you usually lose interest by the time the demo is over. So they though to themselves: Better get a little money, than none at all.Of course it won’t work, since it’s still too expensive for the value.

Valve did it right. Lower the prices by 75%, and you get so many buyers that you make MORE profit.In a couple of years Valve will be offered to buy them, but decline, when they get sold to some strange holding company.

I wonder if this $15 "demo" is going to be in addition to, or instead of, a traditional free demo.

Because, you know, I could kinda see it not feeling like a rip-off if it was in addition to a demo. Play a one- or two-level demo that convinces me this game will be Awesome, then have a chance to spend $15 for a handful of bonus levels that'll add on to the entire game? Not so bad. Or play a free single-level demo, then spend $15 for, like, the first three or four levels of the game, with a discount off of buy

I paid $5 for a preorder of Battlefield:Bad Company 2 simply so I could play the PS3 demo. I had no intention of actually buying the game later, so I guess that technique works pretty well. And honestly, I did easily get $5 of value from it...

I ended up purchasing the game in the end, but the thing is I was willing to pay $5 for a pretty full-featured demo version.

Right now beta keys for Starcraft 2 are selling for $200 on ebay. Part of me would rather pay Blizzard $15 than a scalper $200 to be in the beta. And what if you got $15 off the released game? I'm not sure it's a terrible deal.

At least with blizzcon, it was an event, that you wouldn't of gotten because there is not "full version of blizzcon" coming out soon, While the idea in general might be the same, it's totally different in respect that blizzcon is a unique event that you can't repeat or sell off later.